This is fresh on my mind, so I'll just come out and say it:
SEO is pointless when you're starting your business!
We dug into SEO yesterday inside the Creative Business Bootcamp. I wanted to share some thoughts with you if you're wondering what marketing strategy to choose to grow your audio/music business.
I told my Creative Business Bootcamp student that SEO is the slowest marketing play in the online world.
I'm not saying it's worthless, and you shouldn't do it.
But if you want to get results fast, SEO is NOT where you'll get them.
SEO is a long-term play, and it takes a long time before you see any impact on your website.
Although I relied heavily on SEO back in the day when I was building Audio Issues, I wouldn't do it the same way if I was starting over.
Here's why you shouldn't worry about SEO in your music and audio business...
When it comes to SEO, you have a few options:
Option #1 - DIY
If you decide to do it yourself, you will spend a LOT of time learning how it works to implement it effectively.
You will gain some valuable skills, but the upside is small. For example, you spend two hours a day, five days a week every month, and you price your time conservatively at $50/hour.
That means you spend the equivalent of $2,000 every month on the slowest marketing strategy in the world.
Option #2 - Hire an Agency
Alternatively, you could hire an agency to do this for you, but their fees usually START at $2,000/month. Because it's a long-term play, you won't see any measurable results after a month, so you're looking at spending that $2K/month for a while.
So if you're a small studio business or an up-and-coming music production freelancer, you don't have this money.
Option #3 - The Better Strategy
If I were building my business from scratch, I would still focus on creating valuable content for my target audience because your content will become the cornerstone building blocks of your business.
Your valuable content will live forever and will pay you dividends down the line. For example, audio Issues wouldn't be as successful if it weren't for the 1,000 blog posts we have on the site.
But instead of spending valuable time and money on SEO, I would pay $5 - $15/day in advertising to put that content directly in front of my ideal audience.
You'll spend a fraction of the cost, reaching WAY MORE PEOPLE.
Instead of spending $2,000 every month for a "Hope and Pray it Pays Off Strategy," you will only spend $300/month growing your business in real-time, seeing results come fast every day.
It's easy to find your ideal customer online if you know how to run successful advertising campaigns, but it's also easy to burn your money if you don't have a way to turn those ad dollars into revenue.
After spending close to half a million dollars on Facebook ads, I have a pretty good sense of how to make a return on investment, and it has nothing to do with the ads themselves and everything to do with what comes after.
I'll be adding an Effective Advertising section to my Fast Leads Framework inside the Creative Business Bootcamp once we start the program back up in May.
So if you want fast results with your audio/music business, make sure you sign up for one of the five slots once we open the doors again.
Here's where you go for more information about the Bootcamp.